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INSERTION TOOL FOR ELECTRODE ARRAY SYSTEMS WITH ATTACHED POSITIONER

Publishing Venue

The IP.com Prior Art Database

Abstract

An insertion tool is used to insert an electrode array and positioner into a human cochlea at the same time. The insertion tool includes two stylet wires, two expelling tubes, and a compression spring attached to one of the expelling tubes to reduce, if any, high compressive forces between the insertion tool and the positioner. Once inserted into the cochlea, the positioner and the electrode array are located within the scala tympani and the electrode contacts are positioned against the inner wall of the modiolus of the cochlea, wherein the electrode contacts provide direct electrical stimulation to the auditory nerve cells of a patient with sensorineural hearing loss.

Country

United States

Language

English (United States)

This text was extracted from a Microsoft Word document.

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This is the abbreviated version, containing approximately
18% of the total text.

INSERTION TOOL FOR ELECTRODE ARRAY SYSTEMS WITH
ATTACHED POSITIONER

Background

The present invention relates to
implantable stimulation devices, e.g., cochlear prosthesis used to electrically
stimulate the auditory nerve, and more particularly to an insertion tool used
to aid in the insertion process of an electrode array for use with a cochlear
stimulator that is designed to hug the modiolus so as to place electrode
contacts of the electrode array in close proximity to the ganglion cells and
thereby to the auditory nerve fibers.

Hearing loss, which may be due to
many different causes, is generally of two types: conductive and
sensorineural. Of these, conductive
hearing loss occurs where the normal mechanical pathways for sound to reach the
hair cells in the cochlea are impeded, for example, by damage to the
ossicles. Conductive hearing loss may
often be helped by use of conventional hearing aids, which amplify sound so
that acoustic information does reach the cochlea and the hair cells. Some types of conductive hearing loss are
also amenable to alleviation by surgical procedures.

In many people who are profoundly
deaf, however, the reason for their deafness is sensorineural hearing
loss. This type of hearing loss is due
to the absence or the destruction of the hair cells in the cochlea which are
needed to transduce acoustic signals into auditory nerve impulses. These people are unable to derive any benefit
from conventional hearing aid systems, no matter how loud the acoustic stimulus
is made, because their mechanisms for transducing sound energy into auditory
nerve impulses have been damaged. Thus,
in the absence of properly functioning hair cells, there is no way auditory
nerve impulses can be generated directly from sounds.

To overcome sensorineural deafness,
there have been developed numerous cochlear implant systems --or cochlear
prosthesis-- which seek to bypass the hair cells in the cochlear (the hair
cells are located in the vicinity of the radially outer wall of the cochlea) by
presenting electrical stimulation to the auditory nerve fibers directly,
leading to the perception of sound in the brain and an at least partial
restoration of hearing function. The
common denominator in most of these cochlear prosthesis systems has been the
implantation into the cochlea of electrodes which are responsive to suitable
external source of electrical stimuli and which are intended to transmit those
stimuli to the ganglion cells and thereby to the auditory nerve fibers.

A cochlear prosthesis operates by
direct electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve cells, bypassing the
defective cochlear hair cells that normally transduce acoustic energy into
electrical activity in such nerve cells.
In addition to stimulating the nerve cells, the electronic circuitry and
the electrode array of the cochlear prosthesis performs the...